KNPB, TV CH. 5 - compiled into a video collection of music & conversation by Dave Santina - Thursday January 11, 2001

ARTBEAT: JAZZ - An Interview with Erika Paul

by Betsy Dickinson-interviewer & producer


FULL INTERVIEW TAKES PLACE LIVE AT OROZKO'S RESTAURANT IN JOHN ASCUAGA'S NUGGET HOTEL & CASINO IN SPARKS NEVADA. PARTIAL INTERVIEW AND LIVE PERFORMANCE OF "KEY LARGO", "SUMMERTIME" AND "AUTUMN LEAVES" BY ERIKA PAUL ON KEYBOARD AND VOCALS AND DYNAMIC JAZZ GUITARIST ED COREY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ACTUAL 30 MINUTE VIDEOTAPED ARTBEAT:JAZZ SHOW PRODUCED BY BETSY DICKINSON THROUGH KNPB CH.5, RENO, NEVADA.

BETSY: ERIKA, TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR CAREER IN MUSIC. WHAT GOT YOU INTERESTED IN MUSIC?

ERIKA: I had always liked music from listening to my Dad's record albums. I got kind of an introduction to Louis Armstrong and some of those really great dixieland players and I started piano lessons when I was about seven and didn't really know I could sing outside of choirs and glee club until I was about 19...and just hooked into the expression of it, the creative expression of it...I really enjoyed learning and performing for people and the jazz was always with me in terms of my Dad's influences and I later went on to college to study it officially and listened to a lot of players. A lot of players and not just piano players and singers either, but guitarists, and saxophone players and trombone players and trumpet players to kind of get the feeling of what jazz meant to each artist and see if I could find my own voice.

BETSY: AND WHEN YOU WERE GOING TO SCHOOL, WAS IT AT THAT TIME WHEN YOU KNEW YOU WANTED TO BE A PERFORMER, OR WHEN AND HOW DID THAT ALL COME ABOUT?

ERIKA: That was purely by accident, I was about 16 years old and I picked up a jazz album that I started to play along with and I thought, "I think this is what I'd like to do"...and pretty much made that decision really early and then went ahead and lined up all my ducks in terms of education and experience and stuff to make it happen as a career choice and also to diversify because it's wonderful if you can make your living performing but you need to do a lot of other things too like teach, get involved with education, and arrange and compose and record cds and stuff. So I knew early that it was what I wanted to do. I just didn't know how and so that was part of the path too...to find out what to do...

BETSY: AND DO YOU DO ALL THOSE OTHER THINGS? I KNOW YOU TEACH...

ERIKA: Yes I do, yes I do...

BETSY: SO YOU HAVE RECORDED SOME CDS?

ERIKA: Yes, I have five of them to date, two of them are Christmas albums and three of them are jazz albums with the trio and the last cd, I had a saxophone, trumpet and trombone (oops! flute) with it and it was a lot of fun...a lot of fun to add the extra players and kind of open up the trio sound to be a little bit more variety-oriented.

BETSY: AND DO YOU FIND THAT IT'S EASY TO MAKE A LIVING AT DOING ALL OF THIS?

ERIKA: It's easy to make a living at it if you're prepared to hussle every moment of your life...it's easy to make a living at it if you're real sincere about what you do and make sure that you hook up with a lot of other people who are sincere...often times success comes from all the other people around you who also want success and that's where the community comes in and really helps a lot, especially in performing.

BETSY: CAN WE TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT COMMUNITY....ESPECIALLY HERE? (IN RENO)

ERIKA: I would say, and I've only been here for about 10 years, I'm originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, but I would say that it's a really nice family feeling. I come from an area where there's like you know, 150,000 people in the town I was born almost 40 years ago, so I feel that it's very family-oriented...very small and down home....people are very close, they know what everybody else is doing all the time and the music kind of gets it's foundation and it's background from people who know each other really well...it's a very nice thing.

BETSY: AND YOU ALL SEEM TO KIND OF PLAY WITH EACH OTHER, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, AND ALL THAT GOOD STUFF?

ERIKA: (laughs) yeah...and we hang out together after gigs too. But seriously, after awhile, you get used to each other's playing and singing and you find that you like certain tunes a lot the same and it's really neat. It's been wonderful here in Reno.

BETSY: WHEN YOU'RE IN THAT SITUATION, DO YOU PLAY THOSE TUNES THE SAME WAY EVERYTIME?

ERIKA: ooh, that's a good question! I would say if you're a good jazz player, you would play it differently everytime and I find that I have no idea what's going to happen next. We may call out a tune and it just gets arranged differently everytime we do it and that's the joy of it...that's the self-expression and whatever you're feeling at the moment, however the mood strikes you and that's a really nice thing about jazz. It's very impromptu and totally improvisational whereas you might find other styles of music like country or rock or classical where it's pretty much stuck to what's written on the page and I find that many classical people will come to me for lessons because they want to learn how to let go and just figure out, "Well how did you play that solo, what's going on in your mind?" and really, I have to sit down and show them there's harmonic content and there are scales that go with it...it's not just something that you do off the cuff and it's very different from just reading (notes)...

BETSY: I'VE PLAYED THE PIANO FOR MANY YEARS AND I MEAN, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN MOST DIFFICULT FOR ME IS THE IMPROVISATIONAL PART. I'M AMAZED BY IT. AND SO WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

ERIKA: Often times, a lot of the stuff you end up playing in your solos comes from things that you've listened to. There's a huge role with the subconscious in the music and as far as where it comes from, it's once again what your influences are, what you hear in your mind when you play and what certain progressions will suggest to you chordally if you'd like to try this lick or that line and often times listening to your favorite players too will help you establish note choices and stuff that you go with and then hopefully you elaborate on it and make it your own.

BETSY: SO WHO HAVE BEEN YOUR GREATEST INFLUENCES?

ERIKA: oh, gosh...I was afraid you'd ask that...I listen to just about everybody, but just to keep it short for the interview, I would say that probably my favorite piano players would be people like Oscar Petersen and Bill Evans. Some of my favorite singers of course are people like Sarah Vaughan and Peggy Lee, and I have so many favorites in all the other instruments. I love Curtis Fuller on trombone, and Ben Webster on saxophone and Philly Joe Jones on drums and, and, and, and the list goes on...

BETSY: DO YOU DRAW YOUR MUSICAL EXPERIENCE FROM THESE PEOPLE OR ARE THEY JUST FAVORITES YOU PICK OUT OF YOUR CD COLLECTION TO LISTEN TO?

ERIKA: I listen to them, I aspire to do what they do. But because they are phenomenal players and they've dedicated far more years so far than I have to the field...they're inspiration for me to practice more. (laughs)

BETSY: SO HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN DOING MUSIC?

ERIKA: hmm...I'm going to say that I did start when I was 7, I was self-taught for 3 years and then got my first piano teacher when I was 10 and I'm giving away my age now, I'm gonna say that I've been doing this now for about 20 years...(laughs)...oops...(laughs)

BETSY: AND HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN TEACHING?

ERIKA: I've been teaching for about 18 years...I started when I was 18, and I didn't realize that I had the gift to do it until everyone kept lining up asking me what I was doing and to explain it and I realized that I should do something with that...

BETSY: WAS THERE SOMETHING UNIQUE ABOUT WHAT YOU WERE DOING THAT PEOPLE WERE LINING UP ABOUT?

ERIKA: Yeah...I think so...I think they were very impressed with me by the fact that they didn't hear the jazz stuff I was playing very often and so they were fascinated by it and many of them were classical players that wanted to "know" what I was doing, "What are you doing there, what are you doing there? Show me, show me"...and I also liked to take people individually, as if on their own learning path and that's real exciting for me in the teaching/studying area...that you're growing with each student and they're presenting new problems and it's just as big a challenge on the teacher as it is on the student so I kind of liked doing that (teaching) from the beginning as well (as performing)...

BETSY: AND WHEN, LET'S SAY, YOU GET A STUDENT WHO'S, I DON'T KNOW, 12 YEARS OLD, DO THEY COME TO YOU AND THEY WANT TO BE TRAINED IN JAZZ? I MEAN, DO THEY UNDERSTAND WHAT JAZZ MUSIC IS?

ERIKA: I'm hoping that in a few decades, that will happen...right now, when a 12 year old comes to me...you need to get the kids going...even the adult students...on the basics. They have to know their scales, and they have to know their chords, and their hand positions and their fingerings. And that's stuff you gotta know no matter what style you play. And then if they can last that long, I'll sneak in a little bit of ragtime and see what they do with it...sneak in a little bit of swing and see what they do with it...see what they do with the blues, see if they like to improvise, if they like to hang on to a chord progression in their mind and it's really touch and go because most people don't come to a teacher to ask to learn jazz. They learn jazz by going to the clubs and listening to records and you know, doing that privately in their studios...But jazz education has had monumental changes just in the last 10 years, that it is so totally legitimate to learn jazz now. And people are realizing that it is just as difficult as classical music and it's just as legitimate. So I'm excited at where jazz education is going...

BETSY: DO YOU THINK THAT JAZZ MUSIC WILL EVER BECOME A LOST ART?

ERIKA: hmmm...I personally don't think so as long as I'm around! (laughs)...but I think that it's had a really good foothold, a real good foothold in history with people like Wynton Marsalis that are always promoting and discussing it and educating people about it and performing and I think that it's a very serious historical point in American history. It's just something that America has donated to the world so I don't see it ever disappearing. Americans have to remember to honor it because in Europe, it's just the top...

BETSY: SO JAZZ MUSIC IS IMPORTANT IN EUROPE?

ERIKA: Jazz music is the top...All my cousins in France, Germany and Italy...they just think the world of jazz...more than we could ever know...and you don't know it till you go over there and you hear them talk about it and you go "Wow!". Europeans are so enthusiastic about American jazz and somehow or another we need to catch up to them...(laughs)...as a culture, as a culutre.

BETSY: AND WHY DO YOU THINK WE DON'T GET IT?

ERIKA: I'm not sure if our economic system allows artists to do this type of creative music without, you know, expecting to make their millions. It's a materialistic thing. But we'll always have a group of people that are there supporting it regardless and not worrying too much about the money but more to keep the art alive, you know...

BETSY: IN THE TIME THAT YOU'VE BEEN PLAYING JAZZ MUSIC, DO YOU THINK IT HAS CHANGED MUCH?

ERIKA: Oh yes, oh my gosh, it keeps growing and it keeps fusing with other styles of music that are popular. I mean, if you compare recordings of ragtime music with what's happening today with some of the smooth jazz stuff, it's really going in all different directions and you'll have the traditionalists that will try to keep to what history designates as what the music should sound like and then you have people that are just completely taking it outside and it's wonderful. It will take another 20 years or so to look back to find out what category of jazz is going to be the jazz of 2000, because it takes a little while to decide that, but all of it is going on at the same time...all of it...

BETSY: SO WHERE DO YOU FALL IN THE CONTINUUM? IF YOU WERE TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS A JAZZ MUSICIAN AND SAY, "I PLAY TRADITIONAL JAZZ" OR "I PLAY...

ERIKA: ah...that's a tough one because I've never really been able to describe too much what I do. I let other people do that for themselves. But I would say that because I have roots in traditional jazz and because I'm very interested in the history of it, I do try to honor that. I do like to interject a lot of blues and a lot of maybe more modern phrasings into what I do to standards, but as far as getting real far out or on the cutting edge of jazz, I have a tendency to appreciate it very much but I'll let someone else do that...(laughs)

BETSY: HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO SEE ANY OF KEN BURNS' JAZZ DOCUMENTARY SERIES?

ERIKA: Yes I have! I hope to obtain a copy of it for my library. Whatever I have to do to get it! It is wonderful. It is so in-depth and so detailed and I would recommend every school to own it for their classrooms. Now that education is totally video-oriented and TV-oriented, I see it as a wonderful thing in every school.

BETSY: ONE OF THE THINGS THAT COMES OUT AND IS A REOCCURRING THEME THROUGHOUT THE SERIES IS THAT KEN BURNS BELIEVES THAT LOUIS ARMSTRONG IS THE PERSON WHO HAS HAD THE MOST PROFOUND EFFECT ON AMERICAN MUSIC IN THIS CENTURY. AND THAT, TO ME, IS A REALLY BOLD STATEMENT TO BE MAKING. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT?

ERIKA: It is because...I can't keep track of how many jazz musicians there are and we seem to notate, or the media kind of gravitates to one or two to really up their careers...we've got the Louis Armstrongs and the Miles Davis' and the Duke Ellingtons...my goodness...the Father of the Golden era Of Swing...and I would say that Louis probably lived a lifestyle that opened people up a little bit because of you know the early 1900's, people were very different than they are now...he (Louis Armstrong) was in a social situation where he should have been held down and he was left to be a completely free man to do whatever he wanted with the music. He was charming, he was fair to people and it helped generate his influence on the music just by being a good person. And the same with Duke Ellington, he was one of these guys that was the total diplomat, and you cannot promote your music and your efforts without having some sort of social grace too. And I would definately say that both of those gentlemen did make a profound affect on the history of jazz simply because they were well-rounded, kind people also.

BETSY: AND SO, TO WHAT POINT HAVE YOU SUCCEEDED IN YOUR CAREER?

ERIKA: (laughs) I actually can pay all of my bills with my music...and I think that's a real good definition of success. I don't have to beg, borrow or steal and so I'm just grateful...just grateful...I've been independant and successful with this (music career) for probably 12 years and it seems to just keep getting better and better, which I'm very pleased with, so it must be that I'm doing the right thing...(laughs)

BETSY: AND IN 10 WORDS OR LESS...

ERIKA: Uh-Oh...

BETSY: ...TELL ME WHAT JAZZ MUSIC MEANS TO YOU...

ERIKA: Jazz is like a uniting of souls...sharing music that comes from your heart...that only you can express.